Thursday, 2 January 2014

Happy New Year

May 2014 bring you everything you wish for.

I was going to write a blog about what a lovely Christmas we had had in spite of floods and power cuts in the UK but I am going to rant instead.

The electricity in our rented house keeps tripping. It is a winter problem so we had decided to increase the number of kilowats that come to the house in the hope that that would make the power able to cope with the heating as well as everything else. There has been a six week delay between making the appointment with EDF and them being able to come.

So we spend every day juggling electric radiators and the various appliances.

Today is the day that EDF come. Some time between 8 and 12. So up early to find that it had already tripped in the night, use the gas hob to boil a saucepan of water for tea so that we don't have to scrabble about in the dark for the meter when it trips.

Him Outdoors is off walking via Lidl to buy their excellent German paint which is on offer today.

Phone call. This is a telephone rendezvous from EDF. Nope sorry don't understand we have a rendezvous with an engineer, not a telephone rendezvous. No, I am ringing to make a rendezvous for the 20th. What, you mean I have organised my life so that you can ring me on my mobile phone?? Yes madame, there is no-one coming today, I am making a rendezvous for the 20th. My French must be improving I was able to rant at him that I had already been waiting for 6 weeks, we spend our life with electricity that cuts all the time and that WILL NOT DO. So he scuttled off to see what he could do and ring me back. Bet he doesn't though.

And on rechecking the email to make sure that it was them not me (it was) I notice that if we had decided to change the appointment there would have been charges involved. Sigh. Feel better now.

If EDF wanted to add to their already indecent profits they could set up a sideline in 'improve your French by speaking to our customer service personnel'...

We used to buy German paint at Aldi - not just locally but at all the Aldis in a reasonable radius of the house whenever it came on offer.Higher Authority was of the view that the French had invented and had the monopoly on non stick paint...

Mmm...we have 12kw coming into the house and the first this we thought we needed to do when we get back to France was to reduce it to 9kw. Perhaps we should keep it as it is. I was told (by EDF) that it would cost 30 euros to change the tariff. If things start to trip after the change, I would be as 'miffed' as you are.